e
new plan and feeling more frightened than he had ever believed possible.
Claerten reached him once, but the contact was weak and fleeting; the
director hadn't enough strength to reach him again, at least not for a
day or so. Jonas was exactly where he'd wanted to be: on his own.

He hated the idea.

Time passed, somehow. When morning dawned, Jonas awoke to find the door
of his cell being unlocked. The bald man and the black-haired man were
both there. He looked up at them with distaste.

Then he saw what was in their minds, and the distaste changed to fear.

"You have confessed," the bald one said. "It is necessary that you
ratify your confession. Come with us."

Jonas knew what that meant: ratification of a free confession took place
under torture. He wiped his face with one hand, but he hardly thought of
escaping.

He had to go through with the plan.

The two guards came into the cell and gripped his arms. Jonas allowed
himself to be carried out into the corridor, and down it to a great
wooden door. The guards opened it, and dragged him through.

The torture chamber was brightly lit, with torches in brackets along the
walls that gave off, by a small fraction, more light than smoke. In one
corner the rack itself stood, and there were other tools of the trade
scattered around the room.

Jonas found that he was sweating.

The guards brought him to the center of the room. Knupf was standing
near him, a perfectly blank expression on his face. His voice was the
same rough rasp, but it seemed almost mechanical.

"You have confessed to me," he said, "your heresy. Now, you will be made
to ratify your confession. That done, your penalty will be exacted."

And the penalty, of course, would be death--death at the stake.

He forced himself to remain calm. Now was the time for his play. He took
a deep breath and felt the strength in him gather to a single point and
flow outward. The two men suddenly seemed to stagger; there was a second
of confusion and they had let him go. He stood alone in the room. He
turned and walked to the door, but he did not open it. Instead, he
leaned against it.

He forced his voice into the patterns of calmness and ease. "Your men
cannot touch me," he said.

"Wizard--"

"No," Jonas said. The confusion he was broadcasting kept the men from
doing anything that required even a simple plan, but he couldn't keep it
up for long. "A man like yourself, a man with a particular talent, given